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Faculty of Business - Papers Faculty of Business

2017

Marketing for sustainability: Extending theconceptualisation of the marketing mix to drivevalue for individuals and society at largeAlan A. PomeringUniversity of Wollongong, alanp@uow.edu.au

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Publication DetailsPomering, A. (2017). Marketing for sustainability: Extending the conceptualisation of the marketing mix to drive value for individualsand society at large. Australasian Marketing Journal, 25 (2), 157-165.

Marketing for sustainability: Extending the conceptualisation of themarketing mix to drive value for individuals and society at large

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to provide new theoretical perspective on marketing for sustainability, particularlyfor dealing with the environmental threat of climate change. We reconceptualise how marketing isoperationalised through the conceptualisation of the marketing mix in order to permit the normalisation ofsustainability considerations in business operations and consumption. To the traditional four Ps (product,price, promotion and place) we add but recalibrate for the specific purpose of sustainability participants,processes, and physical evidence, and introduce: promise, principles, and partnership, arguing that each ofthese may be considered a controllable marketing variable that will contribute to the creation/co-creation ofindividual and social value. This framework is developed and justified in order to make a novel contribution tomarketing theory and practice. Limitations and future research directions conclude the discussion.

DisciplinesBusiness

Publication DetailsPomering, A. (2017). Marketing for sustainability: Extending the conceptualisation of the marketing mix todrive value for individuals and society at large. Australasian Marketing Journal, 25 (2), 157-165.

This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/buspapers/1204

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Marketing for Sustainability: Extending the conceptualisation of the

marketing mix to drive value for individuals and society at large

Alan Pomering

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new theoretical perspective on marketing for

sustainability, particularly for dealing with the environmental threat of climate change. We

reconceptualise how marketing is operationalised through the conceptualisation of the

marketing mix in order to permit the normalisation of sustainability considerations in

business operations and consumption. To the traditional four Ps (product, price, promotion

and place) we add but recalibrate for the specific purpose of sustainability (participant,

processes, and physical evidence), and introduce: promise, principles, and partnership,

arguing that each of these may be considered a controllable marketing variable that will

contribute to the creation/co-creation of individual and social value. This novel framework is

developed and justified in order to make a novel contribution to marketing theory and

practice. Limitations and future research directions conclude the discussion.

Keywords

Marketing mix, partnership, principles, priorities, promise, sustainability

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1. Introduction

The American Marketing Association’s (2013) defining of marketing has repositioned

our conceptualisation of marketing, moving it away from the (2004) notion of managing

value-based customer relationships that benefit the organization and its stakeholders to

managing the “exchange of offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and

society at large” (AMA, 2013), and departing significantly further from the 1985

definition, which considered only the interests of individuals and organisations, and

regarded marketing as: "the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing,

promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy

individual and organizational objectives” (Lusch, 2007). According to Gundlach and

Wilkie (2008), the AMA’s new aggregate view of marketing (“and its systemic

properties”, p. 263) recognises a role and responsibility for creating value broadly,

“which easily translates into conceptions of markets and people being affected by

marketers’ actions” (p. 263), and positions its thought and practice for the future,

“equipping scholars and practitioners with the capacity to address marketing’s ever-

increasing complexity” (p. 263).

The AMA’s conceptualisation of marketing is “considered the standard both for

marketing practice and for academic research and education” (Grönroos, 2006, p. 398).

While marketing is still about creating value for individual consumers, it now also

recognises the importance of partners, and the need for the simultaneous creation of

environmental and social value for society at large. The new definition echoes the

societal orientation argued for almost half a century earlier by, for example, Kotler and

Levy (1969) and Lazer (1969). Marketing’s repositioning has called for new approaches

to accommodate value creation for society at large, including calls for it to help

ameliorate the impacts of climate change. Value for society at large might be equated to

the concept of sustainable development, described as “development that meets the needs

of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own

needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 43). These needs have recently been articulated through the

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015).

In celebrating the 75th

anniversary of the Journal of Marketing, Kotler (2011) called for

not less than the discipline’s reinvention, arguing that, to address pressure from

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consumers to change marketing practices, as consumers were no longer choosing brands

on functional and emotional grounds only, but also on how companies meet their social

responsibilities, “companies must address the issue of sustainability” (p. 132). Similar

cries have risen in services marketing (Ostrom et al., 2015), especially as marketing has

been under pressure in recent years to prove its contribution to company performance and

also develop new capabilities in such diverse fields as new digital communications, the

co-creation of value with end-users, and sustainability (Tollin and Schmidt, 2012, p. 509-

510). Not all have recognised the imperative of marketing’s new role, however. Kumar

(2015), for example, while highlighting the need for “new thinking in marketing” (p. 6)

did not include mention of sustainability in his recent look at what has happened and

what to look out for in the discipline, but did lament the decline of conceptual articles

and noted calls “from within the community” for more conceptual articles and marketing

scholarship (p. 6).

The capacity to address marketing’s, and arguably markets’, increasing complexity, is

recently taken up in this journal by Layton (2016), who argues that reframing marketing

as a major discipline within the social sciences will enable its scholars and scholarship to

play a stronger role in contributing to debates around solutions for the creation of

economic value, and also social value. Layton argues that this value for society at large

will permit (enterprise) marketing to move from displaying scant concern for the

externalities “which lie at the centre of many of the issues we now face” (p. 3) to address,

inter alia, “rethinking sustainability and its impacts” (p. 5). Shultz (2016) echoes

Layton’s perspective, and notes that casting marketing in this systems-oriented role has

typically been captured within the domain of macromarketing, which focuses on:

“interactions among markets, marketing and society, ideally toward the enhancement and

sustainability of societal well-being and individual quality of life” (p. 257). Layton,

however, cautions against the field of marketing fragmenting into “a number of

increasingly separate sub-fields, each responding to a narrowly defined range of interests

with often very specific methodologies”, as this is likely to “restrict our capacity to

respond in a holistic manner to the kinds of challenges we now face” (p. 3). The AMA’s

(2013) re-definition of marketing appears to have averted such an outcome, conceiving

all marketing to have as a focus the simultaneous creation of societal value. The approach

to marketing for sustainability presented within this article seeks a holistic conceptual

approach to how this focus might be included.

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The purpose of this paper, in light of the AMA’s broad-based interpretation of

contemporary marketing and to advance our understanding of how marketing’s

externalities might be proactively managed, enhancing both individual and societal well-

being, is to provide new theoretical perspective on marketing for sustainability. We

reconceptualise how marketing is operationalised in order to permit the normalisation of

sustainability considerations in business operations and consumption, chiefly through an

expanded notion of the marketing mix. We propose a novel framework that, we argue,

will better equip scholars and practitioners to work towards greater marketing-

sustainability outcomes. While we insist that sustainability considerations must permeate

each level of a business’s strategic planning, from the vision/mission down, we focus our

attention on the tactical level of the marketing mix. It is argued that the marketing mix is

a logical place to review and mark recommendations in regard to marketing’s role for

sustainability, given it embraces the controllable variables the firm uses to influence

demand by creating value. The AMA defines the marketing mix as the “mix of

controllable marketing variables that the firm uses to pursue the desired level of sales in

the target market” (AMA, 2016). Increasingly, these sales will accrue to the businesses

and organisations that consider the simultaneous achievement of individual and societal

value in their market offerings (e.g. Cone Communications, 2015).

The proposed framework expands the set of activities that might be drawn upon within

the notion of the marketing mix, taking our point of departure as McCarthy’s (1960) four

Ps. To these traditional four Ps (product, price, promotion and place), which remain

implicit in the AMA’s (2007) re-definition of marketing (through the “creating,

communicating, delivering and exchanging of offerings”) we add from the services

marketing literature (Booms and Bitner, 1980; 1981) but recalibrate for the specific

purpose of sustainability: participants (or, people); processes; and physical evidence.

Further, working inductively from the perspective of emerging sustainability practice, we

introduce: priorities, promise, principles, and partnership, arguing that each of these is

controllable (that is, manageable) by marketing managers, and will contribute to the

creation/co-creation of individual and social value. We note and echo Grönroos’s (2006)

point that value is not delivered, but is more typically co-created, and add significant

nuance to how an enterprise’s market offerings come into being. We note that the

creation of value for society at large also, indirectly, contributes to the creation of value

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for individuals as consumers increasingly seek pro-social and pro-environmental

attributes in their market exchanges (e.g. Cone Communications, 2015).

The conceptual approach proffered in this article is based on inductive research, taking

from critical case examples (e.g. Yin, 2014) of contemporary marketing practice, and

argues that the proposed marketing-for-sustainability mix of controllable variables is

sufficiently robust and expansive to span business sectors (e.g., enterprise, not-for-profit

and institutional marketing) and organisational scale, from large, global corporations to

SMEs. Indeed, all enterprises and organisations that are in the business of creating value

(Porter, 1984) might simultaneously be observed to be in the business of coincidentally

creating harm (Polonsky, Carlson and Fry, 2003; Porter and Kramer, 2006). The purpose

of the proposed approach is to attend to minimising this harm creation, which is typically

borne by society at large, and thereby maximise the creation of individual and societal

value. We contend the approach provided here will be sufficiently flexible to have

universal applicability, serving the sustainability-oriented needs of those faced with the

challenge of managing contemporary marketing (AMA, 2013), in general.

The next two sections will review the literature to describe what marketing for

sustainability might look like and the state of play of marketing’s confluence with

sustainability. A brief summary of marketplace evidence from the demand and supply

sides is then presented. This is followed by a description and justification of the proposed

marketing for sustainability mix, a discussion, including this paper’s limitations and

suggestions for future research, and concluding comments.

2. What Marketing for Sustainability Might Look Like

The 1987 definition of sustainable development is often the starting point for interpreting

what sustainability, and what marketing for sustainability, means in relation to business

operations: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the

ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 43). This

development is predicated on more responsible production and consumption.

In September, 2015, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a set of goals

“to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new

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sustainable development agenda”, with each goal having specific targets to be achieved

by 2030 (United Nations General Assembly, 2015). The 17 Sustainable Development

Goals, and their 169 specific targets, focus on “areas of critical importance for humanity

and the planet” (UN General Assembly, 2015, p. 1), including: People, Planet,

Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership. To help proselytise the SDGs, 9,000 cross-sector

companies and 3,000 non-companies across 170 nations have signed up to Global

Compact LEAD, with the mission to take a comprehensive approach to sustainability by:

(i) operating responsibly in alignment with universal principles; (ii) taking strategic

actions that support the society around them; (iii) committing at the highest level; (iv)

reporting annually on their efforts; and (v) engaging locally where they have a presence

(UN Global Compact, 2016).

Sustainability means the maintenance of both environmental and human health, through

the use of renewable rather than finite raw materials and the minimisation and eventual

elimination of hazardous effluents and wastes (Charter et al., 2002). Martin and Schouten

(2012) define sustainable marketing as “the process of creating, communicating, and

delivering value to customers in such a way that both natural and human capital are

preserved or enhanced throughout… so that all the marketing processes are

environmentally and socially benign while helping to bring about a society in which

striving for sustainability is the norm” (p. 238). These authors outline the system

conditions for sustainability: the management of each element (i) causes no systematic

increases in environmental concentrations of substances from the Earth’s crust; (ii)

causes no systematic increase in environmental concentrations of synthetic substances;

(iii) causes no systematic increases in ecosystem degradation; and (iv) creates no

systematic barriers to people meeting their own needs (p. 21). Sustainability marketing

“aims at creating customer value, social value and ecological value” (Belz, 2006, p. 139).

3. Marketing and Sustainability: The State of Play

There has been a recent and substantial increase in academic focus on sustainability

marketing (Belz, 2006, p. 139). For sustainable entrepreneurs (Belz and Binder, 2015), a

triple-bottom-line approach is the purpose and focus from the outset. For businesses that

must make “drastic changes in their research-and-development, production, financial and

marketing practices if sustainability is to be achieved” (Kotler, 2011, p. 132), this

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achievement might come from sustainability-oriented innovation (e.g., Adams, et al.,

2016). The novel marketing proposed below provides a blueprint for retrofitting

sustainability, by guiding the direction of firms’ sustainability-oriented innovation, and is

equally relevant for sustainability entrepreneurship start-ups.

Several general texts addressing sustainability from the marketing perspective have

recently been published, including those by: Belz and Peattie (2009); Dahlstrom (2011);

and Martin and Schouten (2012), while a number of journals, for example, the Journals

of Macromarketing; Sustainable Tourism; and Business Ethics focus on the topic.

In an effort to identify research priorities that have the potential to advance the service

marketing field and deliver value to customers, organisations and society, Ostrom et al.

(2015) highlighted improving well-being through transformative service as one of 12

areas for attention, with service sustainability the highest-rated well-being sub-topic. This

discussion noted that sustainability should be more holistic than merely dealing with the

environment, and include the triple-bottom line (TBL), and service design might consider

environmental protection and “how customers and employees can be influenced and/or

incentivized to take on roles that reduce a service’s negative environmental impact” (p.

141).

While not specifically addressing marketing, Maxwell et al. (2003) recommend that in

order to effectively integrate sustainability in product and service development,

traditional criteria, such as economic, quality and customer requirements, should be

complemented by considerations of environmental and social impacts, and the

functionality required (p. 888). At the corporate level, Adams et al. (2016) argue that

creating social and environmental value in addition to economic returns via

sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) requires making intentional step-changes to an

organisation’s philosophy and values, as well as to its products, processes or practices.

While featuring a particular sustainability-oriented brand item in a product mix, such as

Toyota’s hybrid vehicle options, for a corporation to be perceived as sustainability-

oriented, the entire corporation’s operations, including its product range, is required to

be underpinned by a sustainability orientation (Tollin et al., 2015). Marketing, after all,

might be considered “the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result,

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that is from the customer's point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must

therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise” (Drucker, 1954, p. 38-39).

This whole-of-enterprise perspective, by necessity, brings marketing for sustainability

into the realm of brand positioning, corporate identity and corporate marketing.

Marketing ‘creates customers’ (Drucker, 1954) through positioning, that is, achieving

“the way consumers, users, buyers, and others view competitive brands or types of

products” (AMA, 2016). Balmer and Greyser (2006) highlight that “a key attribute of

corporate-level marketing is its concern with multiple exchange relationships with

multiple stakeholder groups and networks” (p. 732), stressing the importance of network

partner relationships and recognising that different stakeholders’ held images of

corporate brands are an amalgam of many often conflicting facets. Balmer’s six elements

of the corporate marketing mix (2006) detail the antecedents of corporate brand image

formation: character, or corporate identity (What we indubitably are); communication

(What we say we are); constituencies (Whom we seek to serve); covenant (What is

promised and expected); conceptualisations (What we are seen to be); and culture (What

we feel we are). Optimal brand image, and positioning, will be achieved when all six Cs

align. Managing the elements of the marketing for sustainability mix proposed here will

permit firms to more optimally coordinate these six brand- and demand-shaping forces.

Marketing for sustainability considerations must start from the vision/mission and

permeate each level of a business’s strategic planning. Interface Inc., the carpet tile

manufacturer associated with the late Ray Anderson, for example, expresses its mission

as the aspiration, “To be the first company that, by its deeds, shows the entire industrial

world what sustainability is in all its dimensions: People, process, product, place and

profits, by 2020, and in doing so we will become restorative through the power of

influence” (Interface Inc., 2017).

The marketing mix level is where strategic marketing planning is put into action. It is the

matching of strategy to strategic goals and objectives that accord with the achievement of

the organisation’s mission. What is conceived in the mix of demand-influencing variables

is therefore of critical importance to how marketing managers regard their sphere of

influence. Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995), for example, included reorienting the marketing

mix in their suggested four corporate strategies for sustainable marketing. In outlining a

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thesis for “sustainability marketing for the poorest of the poor” (p. 171), Kirchgeorg and

Winn (2006) propose that sustainability marketing might be achieved within the

framework of the traditional four Ps, albeit with “a number of adaptations to the design”

of these instruments (p. 180). Martin and Schouten (2012) work within the four Ps

framework, cross-referencing these with the system conditions for sustainability (pp.

122-217). Belz and Peattie (2009) consider a sustainability marketing mix of four Cs:

customer solutions, communications, customer cost and convenience (p. 149-244),

though, referring to the AMA’s definition of marketing mix, these elements are perhaps

more appropriately seen as the benefit outcomes of marketing’s management of a set of

controllable variables, and customer cost should perhaps be expanded to also include

public good costs.

4. The Market for Sustainability

Consumers realise the power they can assert to have an impact in the marketplace, in the

products they buy, where they work, and the trade-offs they are willing to make to

address social and environmental issues: consumers are “likely to have a positive image

(93%), are more likely to trust (90%), and are more loyal to (88%) companies that

support social and environmental issues” (Cone Communications, 2015, p. 8). Investor-

consumers are also increasingly using sustainability-related data, particularly whether a

company’s environmental, social, and governance metrics connect with its financial

success, as a rationale for investment decisions (Unruh et al., 2016).

Corporate-sustainability reporting has steadily increased among large-cap companies in

the U.S. capital markets, as represented in the S&P 500 Index, up from less than 20

percent in 2011 to 81 percent in 2015 (Governance & Accountability Institute, 2016),

however it appears that the rhetoric is not always matched by reality. While a recent

Business for Social Responsibility (BSR)/GlobeScan survey (2016), capturing nearly 300

business leaders from 152 global companies, and representing more than 60 percent of

BSR’s global membership network, reports that although sustainability is among their

CEOs’ top five priorities for almost half of the companies surveyed, up from just 35

percent on the previous year, “this greater prioritization and attention has not resulted in

greater progress”. In Australia, where, overall, 87 per cent of ASX200 companies are

now reporting on sustainability to some level, the Australian Council of Superannuation

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Investors argues that a third of these companies “remain less than committed to

sustainability reporting, with minimal or basic disclosures that do little to help investors

make informed decisions” (Davies, 2015). Also in Australia, following a content analysis

of the web pages for leading 30 companies on the Australian stock exchange, Brennan et

al. (2011) report “little tangible evidence that sustainable business practices are being

implemented” (p. 52).

Marketing, the natural home of creativity and innovation within corporations, is well-

placed to pursue sustainable development’s goals of more responsible production and

consumption (Jones, et al., 2008). It is evident that more responsible consumption, at the

scale needed to mitigate anthropogenic climate change, cannot be achieved by relying

solely on consumers’ changed buying preferences and behaviours (e.g., Gössling, Hall,

Peeters and Scott, 2010); even if supported by public policy interventions, a

commensurate move to more responsible business practices and outcomes must also

occur.

The business case for sustainability is growing. There is evidence that a greater alignment

between business and societal objectives can improve profitability (Porter and Kramer,

2006, 2011; Seebode et al., 2012). A recent study among S&P 500 companies finds

evidence that companies that build sustainability into their core strategies improved

profitability (Confino, 2014). Companies actively managing sustainability and planning

for climate change were found to achieve an 18 percent higher return on investment than

companies that were not, and 67 percent higher than those companies which refused to

disclose their carbon emissions, while companies investing to reduce emissions achieved

a 50% lower volatility of earnings over the previous decade and 21% stronger dividends

than their lower-ranking peers (Confino, 2014). BSR (2016) has summarised a range of

business benefits from aligning their core business with the SDGs, including: improving

business operations and revenue generation (e.g., achieving greater operational

efficiency); strengthening the enabling environment (e.g., contributing to stabilising

societies and markets); and enhancing reputation and stakeholder relations (e.g.,

increasing employee engagement and recruitment). Such benefits can be seen in the

following examples. WalMart, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund

eliminated almost eight million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the

supply chain by the end of 2013 (Seligmann, 2014), while Duke Energy’s use of a

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sustainability filter to revise its method of starting up a natural-gas fired combustion

turbine plant, saved fuel use, time and carbon emissions, and resulted in the development

of a new start-up calculator that improved efficiency and saved $2m. in the first six

months at just one turbine station (Hopkins, 2011).

Many of the ramifications of the pursuit of increased sustainability will “go to the heart

of the organisation, and will have major implications for the way that business operates,”

(Charter et al., 2003), but the focus of this article is marketing, and in particular

marketing strategy.

6. Marketing for Sustainability: In the Mix

Traditional conceptualisations of the marketing mix neither address nor help facilitate

marketing for sustainability. As such, Kotler (2011) has called for marketing to be

“reinvented” in order to bring about environmental sustainability (p. 132). This sentiment

will apply equally for social sustainability, which together with prosperity make up the

triple-bottom line. We address such calls, proposing an expansion of the marketing mix,

including those variables that the firm might control in the pursuit of the creation of value

for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

In the proposed marketing mix for sustainability (see Figure 1), to the traditional four Ps

are added a slightly recalibrated participants (or, people), physical evidence and

processes, and, in addition, principles, promise, and partnership. We maintain the

convenience of the marketing mix’s mnemonic preference for variables, but we also

acknowledge observations by Grönroos (2006) that, as originally intended by Borden

(1964), a list of mix variables should be context-specific rather than generic, and include,

“what should be planned and implemented as marketing as anything that supports value

formation” (p. 409). It is not suggested that the elements discussed below might simply

be attached to a firm’s marketing expression independent of its orientation, but should

instead be a reflection and articulation of its authentic sustainability orientation (Tollin et

al., 2015). In the remainder of this section we shall expand on the proposed marketing for

sustainability mix elements. Underpinning the following discussion is an ecocentric

epistemology that recognises an alternative marketing approach based on social,

environmental and economic welfare (e.g. Borland and Lindgreen, 2013).

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The four traditional Ps of the marketing mix, product, price, promotion and place, and

how they will need to change to facilitate greater sustainability outcomes, is introduced

by Kotler (2011, p. 133). This author’s comments will therefore form part of the

explanation for the first four elements: product, price, promotion and place.

Insert Figure 1 about here

6.1 Product

Product may be defined as, “A bundle of attributes (features, functions, benefits, and

uses) capable of exchange or use; usually a mix of tangible and intangible forms” (AMA,

2016), or, “anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need” (Kotler &

Keller, 2006, p. 372). If product is conceived in terms of value produced by the

organisation (Porter, 1984), then the harm that is produced in this process (externalities)

should also be considered (Polonsky et al., 2003). Products may be produced using

various levels of materials and processes that have differing impacts on the natural

environment and human health: life cycle assessment is a quantitative instrument that

measures and assesses these relative impacts (Belz and Peattie, 2009). Products might

also be considered based on the impacts of their consumption. A Tesla e-vehicle or a

bicycle, for example, both involve a similar industrial production process as other forms

of conventional transport yet arguably deliver less negative impacts in their consumption

and use. ‘Green’ products should be examined from both perspectives. Further, a

departure from personal ownership of products towards their more temporary possession

and use, witnessed by the growth of the sharing economy, has the potential to lead to

lower production levels, with the impacts reductions this entails, and provides another

view of product from a sustainability perspective.

6.2 Price

Price, as are all the elements of the marketing mix, is a tool to influence demand and a

key positioning driver, influencing how the product, or brand, is perceived by the

consumer in relation to competitors (Kotler & Keller, 2006). Of the various major pricing

strategies, cost-based pricing, in which a mark-up is added to the cost of the product, is

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described as the simplest (Kotler and Keller, 2013, p. 364). The real cost of products,

however, is seldom captured in pricing decisions. Martin and Schouten note that “a

sustainable price accounts fully for the economic, environmental, and social costs of a

product’s manufacture and marketing while providing value for customers and a fair

profit for the business” (p. 171). That is, a product’s price should not violate the four

system conditions (mentioned above), and should include in cost calculations the cost of

the productive process’s externalities. Price should not be subsidised by the cost to public

goods (e.g., water or air quality, or natural or urban environment amenity), but might be

reduced in line with cost reductions due to more efficient resource utilisation.

The experience of some firms’ sustainability achievements suggests that as increased

sustainability delivers decreased financial and other costs, for example, Interface Inc.

(Fishman, 1998), consumers might be able to benefit through lower prices, potentially

giving sustainability-oriented products and services a competitive advantage over less

responsible brand options.

In the travel sector, the price of air transportation rarely captures the full cost of the

product’s negative externalities. While some airlines invite passengers to voluntarily

offset the carbon produced by their travel by adding a small amount to the price of their

ticket, the subscription rates for such offset programmes are typically low (Gössling et

al., 2009). Essentially, the cost to the physical environment is not accounted for. Full-cost

accounting, which could takes the externalities of air travel into account, is not currently

practiced. Booms & Bitner (1980) note that as pricing decisions for such services, and

products, “can only be made with a clear understanding of the value of the service from

the customer’s point of view” (p. 348), full-cost pricing will need to be accompanied by

consumer education. This is one of the roles of the marketing tool of promotion.

6.3 Promotion

Promotion is “the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind

consumers – directly or indirectly – about the products and brands that they sell” (Kotler

& Keller, 2006, p. 536). Marketing communications also represent the brand’s voice and

allow it to build relationships with customers (Kotler & Keller, 2006). Belz and Peattie

suggest a dual focus for sustainability marketing communications: “to communicate with

the consumer about the sustainability solutions the company provides through its

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products, and to communicate with the consumer and other stakeholders about the

company as a whole” (2009, p. 180). This will involve joining conversations about firms

and their brands within social networks on digital media platforms: an increasingly

important forum for marketing-related communications. A third focus, however, is the

mode of promotion; while attention is paid to reducing environmental and sociocultural

impacts in some areas of the organisation’s operations, the means by which this is

communicated to key audiences, for example, via lengthy, full-colour brochures, appears

devoid of sustainability considerations. Marketing communication’s educative role has

the capacity to help both business and consumers avoid the tragedy of the commons.

Corporate and marketing communications can promote transparency, build relationships,

raise the bar on what might be expected as industry standards and minimum expectations,

and overcome the obstacles of consumers’ perceived quality trade-offs and scepticism

when faced with sustainability-oriented marketplace choices (e.g. Matthes and

Wonneberger, 2014; Wymer and Polonsky, 2015).

6.4 Place

Place, or marketing channels, is the range of “independent organizations involved in the

process of making a product or service available for use or consumption” (Kotler &

Keller, 2006, p. 468). These organisations, in producing consumer value, also produce

environmental and/or social harm. While some products, for example information-based

products might now be distributed digitally rather than physically, such convenience is

not available universally. Physical distribution activities remain a necessary marketplace

activity, requiring optimal resource planning for inbound, outbound, and reverse logistics

(e.g. Quariguasi Frota Neto, et al., 2008).

6.5 Participants

Participants was introduced by Booms & Bitner (1981), along with physical evidence and

processes, as part of the services marketing mix, to include the “human actors who play a

part in service delivery and thus influence the buyer’s perceptions: namely the firm’s

personnel, the customer, and other customers in the service environment” (Zeithaml,

Bitner, & Gremler, 2006, p. 26). Participants was later referred to as people, however,

the original term is preferred here in order to distinguish customers and employees from

15

the oft-used People to refer to the broader communities, or society at large, of the triple

bottom line.

The inclusion of participants highlights the role of human resource management and the

notion of the customer mix as key ingredients in service offerings. Charter et al. (2002)

point out that: “an integral part of business sustainability is to remember that ‘people are

the business’ and they have to implement change” (p. 29). Therefore, and since “the

concept of sustainability and many of the issues that are central to it are not yet widely

understood throughout society” (p. 29), these authors note, embracing sustainability will

require the introduction, clear communication and careful monitoring of internal

marketing programmes to staff, who “should be made aware of the issues through

presentations, workshops, internet resources and newsletters, and encouraged to

participate in environmental and social programmes” (p. 29). The contemporary view of

employees and customers as co-producers of value highlights the need for both to be

carefully selected, educated and managed. Marketing traditionally undertakes these

customer-management roles through targeting appropriate consumer segments and

communicating the organisation’s expectations through various marketing

communication techniques. But social media platforms and the conversations about

brands that they facilitate now bring non-customers, or, more generally, consumers, into

the participants category. This recognition necessitates a broader view of the partnerships

that sustainability will require, as discussed below.

In tourism, a business activity that relies on environmental quality, participants can be

encouraged to co-create value for society at large by reducing their individual

environmental footprint. Recent research highlights how hotel guests responded

positively to persuasive communication by reducing their resource consumption

behaviour (energy and water use), while reporting that their overall satisfaction with their

stay was not negatively affected (Warren, et al., 2016). Firms may benefit from open

innovation, which can bring about radical innovation for sustainability (e.g., Kennedy et

al., 2016).

6.6 Physical Evidence

16

In services, physical evidence consists of “the environment in which the service is

delivered and where the firm and customer interact, and any tangible components that

facilitate performance or communication of the service” (Zeithaml et al., 2006, p. 27).

With regard to physical products, physical evidence might consist of such variables as

third-party endorsements and other partner relationships, the provenance of products,

such as foods and their ingredients, country of origin, packaging materials, and other

brand characteristics that signal the firm’s sustainability orientation, such as the use of

recycled materials and reverse-logistics collections. Corporate fleets of hybrid or electric

vehicles would provide such signalling. Physical evidence has the potential to overlap

with other variables in this mix, such as processes and promotion, as it provides

consumers the clues they are increasingly seeking to the back-stories behind the array of

market offerings they are confronted with. Physical evidence has the potential to provide

subtle tie-breaker clues across a wide range of touch-points.

6.7 Processes

Processes include the service delivery and operating systems and are the “actual

procedures, mechanisms, and flow of activities by which the service is delivered ”

(Zeithaml et al., 2006, p. 27). Duke Energy, for example, has used of a sustainability

filter to revise its method of starting up a natural-gas fired combustion turbine plant,

saving fuel use, time and carbon emissions, and resulting in the development of a new

start-up calculator that improved efficiency and saved $2m in just six months at one

turbine station (Hopkins, 2011). IKEA’s early 2014 purchase of the Hoopestown wind

farm, able to generate nearly 1.5 times the energy needed to operate all of the store’s U.S.

operations, will reduce its carbon footprint as it does business (Meany, 2014). Facebook,

Google, and WalMart are also investing heavily in renewable energy (Meany, 2014).

Processes also include how a firm goes about its learning and knowledge management

efforts (Gavronski, et al., 2012).

6.8 Principles

Principles are the firm’s values and these will form a critical element of its identity and

consumers’ and other stakeholders’ brand image of the firm as sustainability-oriented.

Such an image might serve as a tie-breaker in the liking and preference over its rivals for

17

the brand perceived as sustainable (e.g., Cone Communications, 2015). Within the vision

of Interface Inc., for example, is the principle to: “To be the first company that, by its

deeds, shows the entire industrial world what sustainability is in all its dimensions:

People, process, product, place and profits — by 2020 — and in doing so we will become

restorative through the power of influence.” (Interface Inc., 2017). It is evident that such

principles might provide the foundation for the brand’s promise(s). Principles should be

reflected in the firm’s public commitment to one or more of the SDGs, which will be ‘on

display’ both in the organisation’s mission statement and corporate communications,

including its corporate website and reporting, and often in marketing communications,

such as its advertising and public relations. Principles might be expected to start with

efforts to ameliorate the externalities resulting from the firm’s operations, and afterwards,

in line with the notion of creating shared value (Porter and Kramer, 2011), expand to

enhance the social and economic conditions of the communities in which the firm

operates, or society at large. Principles form a natural connection with the firm’s promise,

described next.

6.9 Promise

Promise is captured in Balmer’s (2006) notion of covenant (that is, what is promised and

expected). Promises are the essence of firms’ brands. Promise management, the

foundation stone of maintaining relationships with key stakeholders, such as consumers,

is discussed by Grönroos (2006, pp. 405-7). Promises around sustainability might be

expressed in terms of, for example, the triple bottom line, SDGs, or the system conditions

outlined by Martin and Schouten (2012). Promise should be contained in the

organisation’s mission, the statement of an organisation’s raison d’être, situating the

purpose and direction of the organisation in the minds of employees, customers, and

other stakeholders. Such promises provide firms with benchmarks against which to

measure current performance and also yardsticks to assist with future planning. For

example, Interface Inc.’s mission includes, inter alia, “We will honor the places where

we do business by endeavoring to become the first name in industrial ecology, a

corporation that cherishes nature and restores the environment. Interface will lead by

example and validate by results, including profits, leaving the world a better place than

when we began, and we will be restorative through the power of our influence in the

world.” (Interface, 2017). Interface makes a clear commitment to sustainability through

18

its “Achieving Mission Zero™” addendum to its mission: “Interface’s dedication to

sustainability has evolved into the company’s Mission Zero™ commitment — our

promise to eliminate any negative impact Interface has on the environment by 2020.”

(Interface, 2017). Such promises may also be evident in brands’ corporate-image

advertising and other marketing and corporate communications.

6.10 Partnership

Having sustainability-oriented principles, priorities and promises should inevitably make

it easier to form effective partnerships with internal and external audiences in order to

develop and deliver sustainability performance. Partnership is essential to achieving a

whole-systems approach to dealing with unwanted ecological and sociocultural

externalities. Partnership can be used to ensure that sustainability reverberates along the

entire value delivery network (Gallear, et al., 2012). Partnership will, naturally, occur

internally and externally. Internal partnerships to drive sustainability will rely on internal

marketing and human resource management, and might include employee suggestion

systems that are recognised and rewarded. External partnerships will include the

traditional members of a firm’s value-delivery network, that is, suppliers, channels, and

customers, but might also include those with expertise who might assist the firm achieve

its sustainability goals. Relationship management will be a key aspect of this variable

(Grönroos, 2006). Mendleson and Polonsky (1995) expand on using strategic alliances to

develop credible green marketing, while Hall (1999), referring to the context of tourism,

notes that “issues of coordination, collaboration and partnership are now at the forefront

of much tourism research on finding new solutions to resource management and

destination development problems” (p. 274). The importance of partnerships inside and

outside a firm has been noted as critical to the development and delivery of value,

highlighting the importance of partner relationship management, the value delivery

network, and internal marketing (e.g., Kotler and Keller, 2013), but social-media-driven

conversations about corporate brands and their products now requires efforts to

effectively collaborate with audiences with whom the firm may have no other

relationship with, but who may be representing the interests of society at large.

Considering the implications of Marketing and Sustainability for the future, Charter et al.

(2002) observed: “Companies developing strategies of co-operation and collaboration

19

will be those that are more likely to be successful - as sustainable solutions will require

new forms of partnership. Partnerships may need to be formed with rivals to solve mutual

environmental and social problems, with suppliers to reduce impacts, with customers to

develop new ways to meet needs or to recycle materials, or with former critics to develop

innovative solutions to long-standing problems.” (p. 31). When it comes to the complex

challenges businesses will face in the pursuit of sustainability, partnership will be central

to the concept of co-creation of environmental and social value.

7. Discussion

The proposed novel and expanded mix for sustainability marketing argues that stepping

beyond the constraints of the traditional four Ps is a necessary condition for

contemporary marketers to optimally drive sustainability marketing and facilitate more

sustainable consumption that is a marketplace norm rather than a niche. The concept of

the marketing was not intended to be constrained by only four elements, but might

include any number of variables the firm might manage in order to create value for

individuals and society at large. The complexity of the environmental and social

challenges facing business in today’s critical climate (e.g. Cone Communications, 2015)

requires businesses to develop solutions to problems that fall beyond the walls of

business as usual. Few businesses can achieve this alone, without considerable additional

cost and delay, hence partnership becomes increasingly critical. The same basic argument

is made for all the proposed mix elements, above.

Epstein and Roy (2001) observe that pursuing a sustainability strategy is a complex

undertaking, especially for global firms. Moving from formulating sustainability-related

corporate values, commitment and goals to enacting strategy in the form of market

offerings, via the marketing mix, can only considered as complex, yet, equally,

necessarily so. Nonetheless, as each of the proposed marketing for sustainability mix

elements must be managed and is expected to impact value creation, the contribution of

each needs to accounted for.

Székely and Knirsch (2005) argue that in order to measure the extent to which a firm’s

performance improves as a result of implementing sustainability initiatives the initiatives

need to be directly linked to business strategy, and, based on an analysis of corporate

20

website reporting, examine the metrics used by 20 major German firms. These authors

summarise their findings in terms of economic, environmental, and social metrics, (p.

644), however, while they note an absence of comparability between the 20 firms’

reporting they confine their analysis to internal achievements. How the sustainability

initiatives might have contributed to value creation for societal at large is not discussed.

As the value that is created for individual customers and society at large is to be

measured to determine the contribution of each variable in the marketing mix, so too

should each variable’s simultaneous contribution to the broader societal value be

measured. This point is made by Epstein and Roy (2001, p. 599). The contribution of all

the proposed mix variables may be measured in terms of sales or profits or in terms of

any other organisational goals (AMA, 2016). Just as metrics for the traditional four Ps

might be developed (Brooks and Simkin, 2012), so might metrics for these additional

variables. Importantly though, organisational goals should include societal as well as

corporate aspirations. Frameworks such as triple bottom line reporting, the Global

Reporting Initiative and the United Nations Global Compact can assist this task. The

framework proposed here should assist the marketer address the reporting requirements

of these reporting instruments, as it includes a comprehensive picture of the levers that

might be activated within the organisation’s market-facing operations, and can help to

address the 17 SDGs.

The paper sets out to develop marketing theory (Kumar, 2015; MacInnis, 2011) by

extending the marketing mix framework with novel considerations to deal with the

complex challenges of sustainability and sustainable development, and to add managerial

relevance (Jaworski, 2011) to marketing for sustainability thinking. The extended

marketing mix outlined here has been developed inductively, based on examples of firms

that addressing the sustainability challenge. Testing the contribution of the proposed

elements, both directly and via their interactions, should prove a useful and stimulating

direction for future research, particularly as it would provide a means of understanding

inter-construct relationships. There is extant a considerable body of different literatures

that examine aspects of sustainability marketing, for example, consumer response to

sustainability-related marketing communications (e.g., Luchs et al., 2010; Minton et al.,

2012), however, claims around market offerings that are more systematically embedded

within a sustainability-oriented approach, similar to that achieved by Interface Inc. under

the stewardship of the late Ray Anderson, may reveal novel and encouraging insights. Of

21

particular interest may be the various interactions between the various marketing

variables proposed here. Crowd-sourcing of sustainability initiatives and the co-creation

of individual and societal value among employees, consumers and other potential

stakeholders also proffers useful future research avenues. The possibility that additional

or alternative, controllable marketing variables might also be included in the marketing

for sustainability mix is another potentially valuable future research focus. Finally, the

impacts of different mixes of the proposed marketing variables on value (co-)creation for

different constituents: consumers, clients, partners, and especially society at large, offers

exciting marketing management and research opportunities.

8. Conclusion

The proposed expanded conception of the mix for sustainability marketing does not seek

to replace the considerable volume of extant literature brought forward to assist

marketing managers navigate the difficult waters of moving companies and brands

towards more sustainable market offerings and the societal impacts of consumption of

those offerings. The key purpose of the proposed mix is to remove any obstacles that

might result from managers struggling to achieve sustainability within what might be

perceived as a discipline-imposed toolbox of just four instruments. The elements

proposed here assist by providing more decision areas that will serve as brand-consumer

touch-points, and permit broader and deeper conversations with consumers and other

stakeholders to assure of sustainability efforts.

As a marketing orientation leads to innovation, thinking more broadly about what is

needed in a contemporary orientation for business and having a marketing and societal

value orientation might be expected to lead to sustainability-orientated innovation.

Orientation signifies “a pattern in company innovation and communication behaviour”

(Tollin, et al., 2015, p. 480). These authors highlight that “the kind of innovation most

corporate sustainability initiatives result in or give rise to presupposes a radical change in

managers’ ideas, values and knowledge about the role, purpose and operation of

companies” (p. 475). Our better understanding of sustainable consumption (e.g. Prothero,

et al., 2011) is useful, but in order to encourage such consumption patterns to become

mainstream, a move to greater sustainability marketing by, for instance, embracing

decision-making around the expanded mix above can help achieve this outcome. What is

22

currently thought of as green marketing (e.g. Kumar, 2016) can, echoing Layton (2016),

be viewed simply as marketing.

The proposed mix can provide the marketer with a systematic guide for marketing for

sustainability, raising the overall level of sustainability-oriented business in the

marketplace, and moving sustainability towards the mainstream rather than having it

remain domain of niche segmentation, targeting and positioning, but alone, like green

marketing (Wymer and Polonsky, 2015) it cannot offer a panacea for sustainability’s

system conditions and ethical consumption. Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995) note the role for

regulators to complement corporate strategies for sustainable marketing, and this is

increasingly evident on both the supply- and demand-sides. Some obvious examples in a

number of jurisdictions are, in packaging and labelling (foods), restriction of promotion

(tobacco, and other ‘sin’ products), and restricting consumer age (e.g. purchase of alcohol

and tobacco).

The AMA’s definition of marketing provides a beacon to guide the efforts of marketing

managers to attain their goals. This definition has recently changed, repositioning

marketing’s role by recognising a broad social responsibility, creating value for society at

large concurrent with addressing the needs of and creating value for individual

customers. It is proposed that the expanded notion of the marketing mix, above, will

better equip marketers to do this. The proposed approach to marketing for sustainability

hopefully overcomes marketing’s “inability to cope with fundamental shifts in the

environment” (Grönroos, 2006, p. 412), and proffers an intellectually demanding, more

relevant, and even stimulating exercise for marketing managers. Free of the shackles

imposed by old-economy frameworks such as the marketing mix consisting of the

traditional four Ps, the expanded marketing mix for sustainability proposed here

encourages marketing managers of large and smaller organisations alike to review and

recast their marketing management. Having the 10 controllable marketing variables

proposed here arguably provides greater clarity and flexibility in the pursuit of increased

sustainability outcomes. Treated separately, each of the 10 variables should add capacity

to the marketer’s management and contribute to increased competitiveness and profits.

From an inductive perspective, taken together, the proposed marketing mix provides a

theoretical rationale that goes beyond competitiveness and profitability and will result in

increased sustainability, or value for society at large.

23

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29

Figure 1: A Marketing Mix for Sustainability

Value for customers, clients, partners and

society at large

Product

Physical Evidence

People

Price

Promotion

Principles

Promise

Place

Process

Partnership